This paper explores how reduced self-control affects individual investment behavior in two laboratory tasks. For this purpose, I exogenously reduce subjects’ self-control using a well-established psychological treatment. In each task, I find no significant main treatment effect, but secondary effects consistent with findings on self-control from other studies and self-control’s potential relevance in financial markets. In experiment 1, I find no significant change in the disposition effect following the manipulation. However, treated participants trade fewer different shares per round. In experiment 2, I look at the effect of self-control on myopic loss aversion by implementing a 2×2 design by varying investment horizon and self-control in a repeated lottery environment. Average behavior suggests that reduced self-control increases framing effects, but I cannot reject the null hypothesis of equal investment levels between the self-control treatments within each investment frame. Analyzing the dynamics of decision making in more detail, self-control depleted participants in the narrow frame reduce their investment levels on average over time which seems to be driven by more intense reactions to investment experiences.

This is an electronic reprint of a review of the book "Cultures Merging: A Historical and Economic Critique of Culture" by Eric L. Jones, Princeton: Princeton University Press that appeared in the Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 2007, vol. 163, issue 3, pages 526-529, URL \url{http://www.jstor.org/stable/40752660}.

This is an electronic reprint of the second chapter of the book "On Custom in the Economy" by Ekkehart Schlicht that has been published in 1998 by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. The chapter focusses on the behavioral entailments of concluding a contract.

Theoretical and empirical work on export dynamics has generally assumed constant

marginal production cost and therefore ignored domestic product market conditions.

However, recent studies have documented a negative correlation between firms' do-

mestic and export sales growth, suggesting that firms can be capacity constrained in

the short run and face increasing marginal production cost. This paper develops and

estimates a dynamic model of export behavior incorporating short-term capacity con-

straints and endogenous capital investment. Consistent with the empirical evidence,

the model features firms' sales substitutions across markets in the short term, and

generates time-varying transition paths of firm responses through firms' capital adjust-

ments over time.

The model is fit to a panel of plant-level data for Colombian manufacturing indus-

tries and used to simulate how firm responses transition following an exchange-rate

devaluation. The results indicate that incorporating capital adjustment costs is quan-

titatively important, as shown by the length of the transition period, and the difference

between the short-run and long-run exchange rate elasticity of exports. Firms' expeca-

tion on the permanence of the policy changes also matters.

Microcredit institutions typically apply rigid and fixed repayment schedules when disbursing loans in order to reduce transaction costs, simplify procedures, and inculcate fiscal discipline for better repayment behavior. Microcredit clients, however, often have neither smooth income nor singular moments in which to make lumpy investments throughout the year. This mismatch generates a cash flow disconnect and, given the presumed liquidity constraints of the typical microcredit client, a potential welfare loss. Using data from a randomized evaluation with dairy farmers in rural India, we test the impact of flexible microcredit repayment schedules relative to "normal" inflexible, fixed repayment schedules. Although we are only able to track those who borrow, which introduces potential selection effects, we find amongst those in flexible lending groups some evidence for higher ability to absorb shocks and higher income, which seems to be driven by limited improvements in investment and higher production from milk. On the cost-side, defaults do increase for the lender. Towards the end of the study, the microcredit market encountered crisis, with mass defaults, thus it is hard to generalize with respect to the default results. We conclude with caution, that we have shown suggestive evidence that a more flexible product design, one tailored to the needs of a dairy farmer, may be welfare enhancing for the dairy farmer. Further work is needed to both validate these results, and explore how to balance any trade-off with default.

While trust and trustworthiness provide a fundamental foundation for human relationships, little is known about how trusting and trustworthy behavior in social dilemmas is related to age and aging. A few papers use data from surveys such as the World Values Survey to address a potential connection between trust and age. In this chapter, we will mainly focus on trusting and trustworthy behavior elicited with the use of the seminal trust game (Berg et al., 1995) and with games implementing a similar incentivized interaction structure. The results suggest that trust and trustworthiness increase with young age until adolescence. Trustworthiness reaches the level of adults at an earlier age (at around 15-16 years of age) than trusting behavior (around adulthood). Survey results differ from incentivized experiments when it comes to a potential development of trust in adulthood. The former indicate a steady rise in trust levels at a small rate when becoming older, whereas the latter show a decline, starting at an age of about 60 years.

This paper studies the relationship between social class, educational attainment, and social mobility. While educational expansion has been shown to increase educational attainment and social mobility in contemporary countries, the 19th century has received little attention. The German state of Bavaria experienced an enormous expansion of secondary education in the course of the 19th century, also due to the introduction of modern secondary education (Gewerbeschule). In this context, it is asked whether educational expansion (1) led to changes in the association between social class and educational attainment, and especially so after the introduction of the Gewerbeschule; (2) weakened the link between social class of origin (father’s occupation) and class of destination (son’s occupation) and thereby increased social mobility? Employing a unique dataset based on annual school reports of 21 Bavarian cities covering the 19th century, the analysis of occupational background information on students by the use of HISCO/HISCLASS reveals that introduction of the Gewerbeschule increased self-selection of the upper class into traditional and the middle class into modern education. Even though educational expansion did not increase participation of lower social classes, the prospect of social mobility for underprivileged classes was high especially in the Gymnasium.

Although understanding preferences for privacy is of great importance to economists, businesses and politicians little is known about the factors that shape the individual willingness to share personal data. This article provides three experimental studies with a total of 470 participants that help characterizing individual preferences for sharing personal data varying the characteristics of potential recipients. We find that participants’ willingness to share personal data with anonymous recipients decreases with the number of recipients. However, social distance to the recipients and the extent of personal data a single recipient receives do not decrease the willingness to share personal data. Further, we provide a methodological insight by showing that verification of personal data is essential when eliciting privacy preferences.

In my view, globalization is a process that has taken place episodically since approximately the beginning of the 16th century. Previously, there were a number of attemps at globalization, which however failed to attain the precondition of regular commercial and communicative relationships among the parts of the globe; nor did they lead to the kind of stable multilateral interdependence that later took place (Osterhamme/Petersson). In chronologically sequenced chapters, I briefly present the driving forces and the consequences of globalization. In the respective chapters, Chinas highly variegated role is explored: from the first attempt at globalization in the 14/15 centuries, which was of an expansive nature; in the first push at globalization from 1500, China was increasingly in retreat; during the surge of globalization in the 19th century, China was an almost insignificant push‐toy of the European powers; and in the current situation China may be characterized as a tardive beginner, yet then advancing to a leadership role. In concluding I undertake a framework for understanding the so‐called "Chinese Economic Miracle," for which the German term Wirtschaftswunder may readily be substituted. The highly differential significance of China for these various phases of globalization is an arresting example for my hypothesis that globalization may not unreasonably be regarded as a market‐driven and invariably politically‐fashioned process.

How do alternative job opportunities affect teacher quality? We provide the first

causal evidence on this question by exploiting business cycle conditions at career start as a source of exogenous variation in the outside options of potential teachers. Unlike prior research, we directly assess teacher quality with value-added measures of impacts on student test scores, using administrative data on 33,000 teachers in Florida public schools. Consistent with a Roy model of occupational choice, teachers entering the profession during recessions are significantly more effective in raising student test scores. Results are supported by placebo tests and not driven by differential attrition.